25 AUB Power Customers Affected By Bad Underground Wire; Extended Time Out

Media Contact:

Wayne Scarbrough

(423) 745-4501 ext. 6002

wscarbrough@aub.org

September 11, 2018

ATHENS, Tenn. – AUB is alerting some two dozen customers in the Housley Drive/Miami Street/Valley Drive area of Athens that power may be out through the morning after an underground power distribution line failed overnight.

The power line in question is an aging “direct buried” distribution line that dates back decades, when the standard practice was to bury lines directly in the ground as opposed to running lines inside conduit, as is today’s practice.

About 2 a.m. overnight, AUB began getting calls from the affected area.  Forty-one AUB customer accounts were affected at the time.

Crews responded and began troubleshooting and were able to isolate part of the area grid and restore power to all but 25 customers.

These remaining 25 customers could be out of power until near noon.  This is a conservative estimate for planning purposes based on the extra time it takes to investigate and repair underground issues, especially on an old direct buried system.

We certainly hope and will work to get everything back in service before that time.

Of note is that this is a neighborhood on the AUB power distribution system that already is planned for an upgrade to new underground wire in conduit.  AUB is working with available annual budget to abandon all of the old direct buried lines in the system and replace them with wire-in-conduit systems.

AUB appreciates the patience of the 25 affected customers and will continue to focus on getting this work complete as quickly as possible.

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